Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 2.djvu/94

 a fair share of the elegancies as well as comforts of life, to a young couple blest in each other's love, and remote from the horrible taxes and emulous gentilities of this opulent England, where out of fear to be thought too poor nobody is ever too rich.

Matilda wrote no more to Darrell. But some months afterwards he received an extremely well-expressed note in French, the writer whereof represented herself as a French lady, who had very lately seen Madame Hammondwho was now in London, but for a few days, and had something to communicate, of such importance as to justify the liberty she took in requesting him to honour her with a visit. After some little hesitation, Darrell called on this lady. Though Matilda had forfeited his affection, he could not contemplate her probable fate without painful anxiety. Perhaps Jasper had ill-used her--perhaps she had need of shelter elsewhere. Though that shelter could not again be under a father's roof--and though Darrell would have taken no steps to separate her from the husband she had chosen, still, in secret, he would have felt comparative relief and ease had she herself sought to divide her fate from one whose path downwards in dishonour his penetration instinctively divined. With an idea that some communication might be made to him, to which he might reply that Matilda, if compelled to quit her husband, should never want the home and subsistence of a gentlewoman, he repaired to the house (a handsome house in a quiet street) temporarily occupied by the French lady. A tall chasseur, in full costume, opened the door--a page ushered him into the drawing-room. He saw a lady--young-and with all the grace of a Parisieune in her manner--who, after some exquisitely-turned phrases of excuse, showed him (as a testimonial of the intimacy between herself and Madame Hammond) a letter she had received from Matilda, in a very heart-broken, filial strain, full of professions of penitence--of a passionate desire for her father's forgiveness--but far from complaining of Jasper, or hinting at the idea of deserting a spouse with whom, but for the haunting remembrance of a beloved parent, her lot would be blest indeed. Whatever of pathos was deficient in the letter, the French lady supplied by such apparent fine feeling, and by so many touching little traits of Matilda's remorse, that Darrell's heart was softened in spite of his reason. He